I’m looking to do more composites in the future and I thought that the below picture was an interesting starting point as there is some kind of an empty space on the right side.

I wondered who she could face and thought that Bane was a good opposite.

Here’s the Bane I used for the composite.

Here’s the final result.

I think Bane could have been bigger but I think it could have made him less human. My main goal today was to do a quick selection and integration and I learned some actions I will most likely reuse. After all my last “composite” was this one. My biggest issue though was the difference of focus (she’s softer than he his) but I didn’t manage to find an easy solution. I guess that the best is to plan for the composite in advance.

I was looking for a dramatic effect and be able to control the light.
Below is the setup I used. It’s the 100mm lens with 2 Canon 550EX flash. The flash with the soft box (white diffuser on the right, closest to the camera) will be called B while the other one one the left will be called A.
I moved A and B and lot and checked the results and adjusted each time. When the light was ok, I discovered that I didn’t like some of the positioning of Selena so I changed it and had to redo the lights. In total I ended up taking 70 pictures in close to an hour. Below are the final 3. The only difference was on the balance of the flash. With the trigger I can give more or less power to a group of flash.

Flash A and B have equal power.

Flash A has 4 more power than flash B

Flash A has twice the power of flash B

I used the 2-1 setup as the starting point for the edit.
Here are the major steps I applied.

In Lightroom 5: Adjust the clarity

In Lightroom 5: With a brush, increase the exposure slightly on the right hand

In Photoshop CS6 : duplicate the layer and remove the spots and the unwanted details with the healing tool

In Photoshop CS6 : with the magic wand on the face, selected the burnt areas and used the fill option with content aware set. Then I extended the selection with the feather option and applied a surface blur

In Photoshop CS6 : Duplicated the layer and applied a surface blur. I then used a layer mask to have this only applied on the chest and changed the opacity to keep a bit of texture

In Photoshop CS6 : I fixed the articulated split at the belly with another selection and content aware file

In Photoshop CS6 : I fixed the wrist with taking a part of the arm, copying it, transforming it to cover the wrist and then merge and healing.

In Photoshop CS6 : I cropped to get tighter to the subject.

In Photoshop CS6 : Duplicated the layer and used multiply to darken the whole. Then used a mask to reveal the right arm, whip, chest and face.

In Photoshop CS6 : Flipped the canvas horizontally as I preferred this direction.

Voila. Please let me know what you think of it and if you would have done anything differently.

Finally unpacked my great gifts I received for my birthday and Christmas. I had a lot of fun with my Bane action figure. I was just looking for something quick and see if I could make Bane somewhat menacing. Soon he should meet the Dark Knight!

Celine and I are permanent guest judges and since the middle of the year we switched the roles a little. She has to pick one favorite from the winning pictures and I have to pick several “non-winners”.